My hunch was that it was either a the Reed-Sue wedding (FF Annual 1965) or when Spider-Man was first proposed for Avengers membership (ASM Annual 1966), but it seems like there’s always been a firewall between these two characters. They only met twice in Marvel Team-Up one-on-one. When Spider-Man was first actually made an Avenger, Cap took him aside and vetoed that vote. Until Bendis brought Spidey into the Avengers, it’s like there was some dire reason to keep these two characters apart.
Cap never really had much of a sense of humor. I can see him thinking Spidey wasn’t a terribly responsible hero and kind of holding a low opinion of him just because of Spidey’s constant wisecracks.
But I have no official idea whatsoever.
I believe there was an issue of the Avengers, v1, where Spidey tried to join the team. As he was talking to them, an earthquake struck the area and Spider-Man was the only hero to keep his feet. Cap asked him why he was able to do it and Spider-Man replied he had the spidey sense. As I recall, Cap said he should share info like that and become more of a team player. Spidey didn’t join because the government wanted more information about him, info he was apparently unwilling to give. As he swung off, he commented that his government trusted Star Fox, who is an alien, more than it trusted him.
I don’t think it was Spider-Man’s sense of humor. Cap put up with Hawkeye who was much more insolent and not nearly as funny.
They didn’t really share a scene in the FF Annual, though they were in the vicinity of each other. The Spider-Man Annual you mention is the first time they share a panel and actually interact.
The only reason I could think that they might not have been teamed-up all that often is because they are so thematically different. (In-universe,) Spidey is the hero universally seen as a menace, Cap is the guy that is universally respected. For the readers, Spidey is young, relatable and counter-culture. Cap is old-school, iconic, and establishment.
I think a team-up really wasn’t feasible until John Romita took over as artist on ASM. A Steve Ditko Cap would probably look ridiculous. (This is where someone links to an awsome Ditko drawing of Captain America to prove me wrong…)
Meanwhile, Jack Kirby who was drawing Cap in The Avengers wasn’t too keen on drawing Ditko’s version of Spider-Man after Stan Lee rejected his design for the character. Even when Kirby penciled Spidey for FF Annual #1, Ditko was the one who inked it to make sure he looked right.
to tell the truth, I can’t honestly recall when SpiderMan first met Captain America. I’d have to go dig through my ancient collection to find out. But I can tell you something interesting about the first time Cap met The Human Torch. The Johnny Storm Human Torch, that is, not the Glden Age android human torch.
It was in Strange Tales #114 from November 1963. What makes this interesting is that Captain America wasn’t “unfrozen” and brought back to be in the Silver Age until Avengers #4 (March 1964).
The 1963 issue was a “tryout”, to gauge reader reaction (just as the Jimmy Olsen story with a pre-Supergirl “Supergirl” had been a tryout for that character in the late 1950s). The issue was drawn by Jack Kirby. It turns out at the end that the Captain America Johnny Storm encountered is an imposter – it’s the villain The Acrobat dressed up in Cap’s costume, with a shield that looked like The Real Thing.* At the end of the story, Johnny wonders what became of the original Captain America.
*Johnny was the catalyst for reviving Golden Age heroes, it seems. He’s the one who, earlier, had discovered Prince Namor, the Sub-Mariner, living in a NYC flophouse (and had been reading a Sub-Mariner comic book at the time). He then shocked him into awareness by dunking him in the ocean – which turned out to be a bad idea.
He’s also the first Marvel Hero to encounter the original Golden-Age Human Torch in FF Annual #4 in 1966 (Also he had been found and awakened by The Mad Thinker first, who brainwashed him.)
Not exactly what you’re asking, but one of the Spider-Man titles had a 0 or -1 issue where it was revealed that young Peter Parker idolized Cap when he was growing up. Maybe all that hero worship made it hard for Spidey to be around Cap without just losing his shit.
That was Marvel’s “Flashback” month in 1997, in which young Peter Parker pulls out some Golden Age comic books from the attic and daydreams what it would be like to be Captain America. Interesting story.
I got a message on Facebook from Tom Brevoort, an editor at Marvel. He said their first “meeting” was in Avengers 11, but their first actual face to face was in the 1966 ASM Annual.
That’s about as authoritative as it gets! Looking at that issue, they actually share a number of panels together.
I can’t find Cap, but check out his Superman!
I won’t do that, but I’ll note that Ditko had no problem making Kraven the Hunter’s broad-shouldered agility look big and fast and dangerous – and his costume is maybe nine times sillier than Cap’s, no matter that they’re equally square-jawed.
How about this? Byrne inked it.